Posts Tagged ‘BYS’

I’m sure you are aware of the resting bitch face. Urban dictionary defines it as “a person, usually a girl, who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless, without meaning to.” Fortunately, I don’t have that, but I do have what I would call resting sad face. Apparently I look sad or depressed when I am expressionless. I have more than one person per week come up to me asking if I’m okay, when I was actually feeling pretty upbeat! Maybe I need to smile more…

Anyway! I would like to share with you one of the ways I reuse my empty Glamourboxes. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but Glamourboxes are pretty large and sturdy and really quite reusable.

Since the boxes are nicely sturdy, I use them as trays/containers for my nail polishes. Here you see one and a half Glamourboxes holding my favorite polishes and nail art equipment. I also use another box as a tray where I put my selected supplies so I don’t need to bring an entire box of polishes every time.

Here’s a closer look at the individual trays. This box is where I put my (growing) collection of Dazzle Dry nail polishes. On the corner is my lone Rescue Beauty Lounge lacquer.

This one holds my “other” brands. I have here a surprising amount of OMG polishes and a bit of Girlstuff, Models Own, San San, Essence, and Etude House. There’s also lone representatives from Misa, BYS, and Bobbie.

Finally this one holds my nail art supplies. Most of it is actually from the Nailinator as I won one of her contests.

Writing this post makes me realize that I might have a bit too much nail polish (you don’t say?!). At the same time, I also feel like my boxes can hold a bit more bottles and there’s that really horrible nagging thought that I have maybe five more unused Glamourboxes hanging around. I…I’m addicted, aren’t I?

One of the booths I visited during the Blogapalooza 2013 was BYS. BYS is an Australian cosmetics brand that recently landed in the Philippines. They carry a wide range of makeup products as well as nail polish. Signing up at their booth bagged me a sample of their nail polish. When I got home and investigated the sample, I experienced a happy shock. It was in fact a full-sized bottle of BYS Nail Art Lacquer, of the shade 009 Fuschia Pink!

This 10-ml bottle has a big black plastic cap that holds a thin striper brush. The shade name is found at the bottom and the ingredient list and other information at the back.

I immediately tried this out in a nail art. I used Dazzle Dry Strawberry Macaron as base color, and used BYS Nail Art Lacquer to paint straight and even stripes on all my nails. Here is the final look:

The black handle made it very easy to create stripes. It lent to good control, even for my non-dominant hand. Check out my right hand:

I have to say that this nail art lacquer makes my stripes look a lot more professional, for both hands! The drying time is fairly fast, and it works well with my favorite base and top coats (Dazzle Dry). Here are some outdoor shots of my nails.

BYS is cruelty-free. Check out more shades of their Nail Art Lacquers here. BYS is available in SM Beauty and Watsons branches. I don’t know how much the nail art lacquers cost; I will update this post once I find out the price.

Pros: works great as striper; dries fairly fast; works well with Dazzle Dry system; cruelty-free

Blogapalooza 2013, hosted by When in Manila, happened last November 16 at the SMX Convention Center at SM Aura Taguig. It was a business-to-blogger event, where companies and small businesses are given the chance to access more than 400 bloggers in a single place. The idea is to create relationships between brands and bloggers in this convenient and welcoming event. I was fortunate to have been accepted as a blogger participant.

Small stage at the front for company presentations

Dozens of booths like this occupy most of the floor

Along with booths from participating brands and companies, there are also presentations lined up as well as a ton of giveaways. The event proper started at 11am, but I was only able to arrive at around 2pm. I went around the booths and visited the brands I am interested in. Among the booths I visited are Brownbag Coffee (very tasty blend and friendly owner), Mind Museum (interesting trivia game), GrabTaxi (I was 75% through the electric buzz wire game!), Enjoy Philippines, and Megaworld (I won a LINE doll from the spin the wheel!).

My pathetic attempt to copy the smirk of this LINE doll

The giveaways include a bag of really awesome coffee (Brownbag Coffee), a bottle of nail polish for nail art (BYS), a water bottle (Tempura), keychain (Flavors of China), and notebook (Karate Kid), a toy gift pack (Richprime Global Inc.), and amazingly enough, a free trial membership with voucher booklet until March from Enjoy Philippines!

Food was also being served, and the main provider is Tempura Japanese Grill. Fortuitous, as this is one of my favorite Japanese restaurants.

The presentations and speeches were also very informative. I especially enjoyed the talks by Jason Cruz about blogging and digital marketing, Karen Bordador about constant personal evolution, and the money-burning demonstration by the Mind Museum mindmovers.

All in all I had a lot of fun at Blogapalooza, and I wish I had more time to spend there. I learned a lot of things from the speakers. I look forward to joining next year’s Blogapalooza!

Finally after a long time I’ve been able to do a review. Today I’m reviewing BYS Brow and Eye Pencil in Brown, which I briefly showed you in my April haul. Let me refresh your memory.

It’s an automatic pencil, meaning no need for sharpeners. You just need to twist the tip to dispense the product. As you can see, the product comes in a thin and flat strip, with a slanted end for easier application. Here is the pencil swatched on my arm.

I swatched it both on the wide side and the narrow side. This shade is a very dark brown, and looks even darker when on the brows. This is okay since my hair and brows aren’t dyed, and is still quite black. This shade is what the BYS SA recommended when I asked to choose between this and the Blond shade. Now while I was swatching this on my arm, something bad happened. I must not have been using the correct angle, or I’m putting too much pressure, but the product broke! Twice! So just like that, I lost about a centimeter worth of product. On the bright side it taught me a very valuable lesson about fragility of products and swatching.

Here it is applied to my eyebrows.

My bare brows (top) are really pretty sparse especially towards the sides. Applying the BYS pencil made my brows look whole, unbroken, and neat. I smoothed down the product with a brow brush. Overall I am pleased with the effect. I’ve been using this almost everyday. As for longevity, it lasts the whole day if you didn’t sweat much or rub your brows. I think this is not waterproof, so sweat can erase it. It’s also not smudge proof, so one needs to be careful not to rub at the brows or the product will get erased as well. This cost me about Php350 (purchased at Watsons), which is not really that bad but it could be better considering it’s not waterproof or smudge proof.

Pros: readily available from Watsons; works well as brow pencil, and can double as eye liner

As I bought a lot for the month of April, I decided to just do a huge post to show you my haul. First up is my haul from Sample Room.

I got the Zen Nutrients All is Well Oil (40 points) and the SoTrue Lavender Skin Repair Balm (10 points) from their Earth Day set.

The All is Well oil is very similar to White Flower. It soothes headaches, coughs, and dizziness through inhaling the soothing scent of eucalyptus, lemongrass, and peppermint. I’ve tried this out and it does the job for coughs. I’ll try this for headaches and dizziness once I get those. This is actually a full-sized product, which costs Php125.

The Lavender Skin Repair Balm is basically what its name suggests. It’s a moisturizer for lips, elbows, knees, and heels, supposedly, but I’m mostly using it to soothe itchiness and lighten dry patches. I love that it comes in a tube as it’s easy to carry in my purse. I’m not sure about the full sized product though, I think it comes in a tub. The full product costs Php350.

The next products come from my favorite drugstore, Watsons.

I am starting to love wet wipes, and I decided to try out the Watsons brand of anti-bacterial cleansing wipes. This is a 3-pack of 10 wipes each, for about Php99 I think.

I’m now a fan of Nouveau hair items, from my last Watsons haul. I purchased a set of scruchies this time, 4 pairs for Php99.

I’ve been wanting to get this Maybelline Baby Skin Pore Eraser. There’s been lots of positive reviews and I am keen on trying this for myself. It’s only Php399 which is not bad for a primer. I scored the last one from the store!

Next is BYS Brow and Eye Pencil in Brown. I’ve seen reviews of this as well and I wanted a better brow pencil than the one I currently have. I had a choice of either this automatic pencil (Php350) versus the non-automatic one (Php250) which came with a brush. I decided that since I will be bringing this for travel, I didn’t want the hassle of bringing a sharpener as well.

My next haul is from Snoe, Landmark Trinoma branch. I’ve been wanting to try a lot of products from Snoe (due again to positive reviews online) but I kept myself to two products for now.

First is the new Awesome Poresome Beauty Bar, which is a facial cleanser that has calamansi, witch hazel, pineapple, and cucumber, all products that aim to reduce the pores. The SA mentioned that this is an upgrade of Snoe’s Calamansi bar. This is a huge bar, 140g, and costs Php199. I’m sure it will take me a long time to finish this. The scent is soothing too!

This is Snoe Rouge Deluxe in X19 Mauve Movement. This is also one of their newest shades. I actually have a long list of shades I want to try, but I decided to go for the one outside my comfort zone. This has a slightly purple tint to it, which is definitely something I haven’t used before. I love how pretty the tube is, quite unique among my (meager) collection of lippies. This costs Php399.

Lastly, I went on a splurge of Dazzle Dry lacquers as they are currently on a month-long Mother’s Day sale. The original cost of a bottle of lacquer is Php450, but it’s down to Php399! I thought that since I am so in love with the DD samples that I won, I might as well use this opportunity to get a good spread of colors. I’ll have a separate unboxing post, but let me show you a sneak peek:

I got four! Woo! I can’t wait to try these out. For your reference the shade names are: Sahara, Lavender Parade, Polar Jade, and White Lightning. Some of the shades are already sold out, so go right ahead to their online store and get your own before it runs out!